Chapter V

The People-of-Peace

AGAIN I handed Hannah the candle, and shook the rock slab; lay down and kicked it, and could not budge it. “Lead out. We can never move it without a crowbar,” I said.

We were about halfway back to the entrance of the passage when Hannah paused, sat up, and from a projection of the wall close up under the roof secured a handful of sticks averaging about six inches in length and a half-inch in diameter, and we saw at once, by the dim light of the candle, that they were not just sticks, the pilings of a rat nest: all were notched in at one end, and several had carved ends, and to the head of one of them a few downy, tiny feathers adhered, as though stuck on with glue. We found a few more of the sticks at the back of the little shelf – eighteen in all, and then noticed that the floor was covered with the dust of similar sticks that had rotted, except here and there an end, and they crumbled into gray powder between our fingers. We went on with our finds, out upon the ledge, and up the ladder. We then saw that the sticks had been banded with paint, some with three colors: white at the top or carved end, blue in the center, and then black. Others had bands of one color; still others just a band of black at the lower end. We sat there upon the rocks a long time, examining them, wondering for what purpose they had been made. At last Hannah insisted that they had been children’s toys: dolls, or pieces for some kind of a game. Somehow I did not think that explained them. The sun was now near setting. We put our rock ladder weights back on the pile below, and took ladder and sticks down to the cabin. No trace was left, there on top, of our descent into the cave hole. Days would elapse before we could get a crowbar up from home, and in the meantime we did not intend to give chance visitors a lead to our find. Every summer tourists came up on the mountain for a view of the great forest and the desert stretching north from it. It was time for some to be coming, so we hid the ladder and the queer sticks under Hannah’s bunk. That would save us answering questions about them.

The night passed without incident. I awoke at dawn, as usual, and looked up and down the clearing, stared into the spruce thickets; saw nothing but a couple of blue jays fighting a squirrel away from the tree in which they had their nests. I laughed at myself: I had gone to bed determined to watch a long time for the grizzly whose tracks I had seen, to watch for him on and off all through the night, and I had fallen asleep not five minutes after getting under the covers, and had not once awakened. I got up and dressed, called Hannah, and went to the spring. Sister objected to getting up so early, and I had to threaten her with a bucket of the icy water. I was anxious to go up on top and see if more fires had been started during the night.

We were in the lookout before seven o’clock, and how glad we were when we failed to see smoke in any direction. I made my report to the office a few minutes before nine, and then, listening in, learned that the fires west of Green’s Peak had been put out. The patrol told the Supervisor, however, that he was sure they had been started by firebugs, for each one was in very thick timber where it would have done great damage if a strong wind had come up. The patrols were worn out by their all-day and all-night work, and the Supervisor told them to sleep: that he would not call them until he had to, for the sheriff’s men and the Indian police were all our searching for the firebugs. He then called me, and said that I could leave the lookout at five o’clock, but wanted me to return to it for a few minutes, just before sunset, and make a last report.

We put in most of the day looking for beads and collected nearly two hundred – and a few arrow-points – all close around the lookout. We had doubtless scraped out several hundred more that, in the mixture of dark earth and fine gravel, had escaped our eyes. It was as if they had been poured upon the little butte, thousands and thousands of them in the long ago, for undoubtedly the terrific winds and the beating rains and the melting snows had carried immense numbers down the mountain-sides, and still plenty were to be found on top. Why, why had they been deposited there by the ancient people! we kept asking, until our minds were all in a whirl.

Said Hannah, along in the afternoon: “I’ve just got to quit the search or I shall go blind. Oh, well, just this one short crevice, and then no more for to-day.”

A moment later she cried out: “Come here! Quick! See what I have found!”

It was a find: inlaid, upon an oval, whitish substance about three inches long, were pieces of turquoise, close en-joined, in the form of a frog, and held in place with something that looked like black gum. Close above the head of the frog was a hole in the white substance, evidently for the purpose of attaching the piece to a necklace. It was a fine piece of workmanship.

“It was a woman’s jewel, and how proud she must have been of it!” Hannah exclaimed. “Any woman would be glad to wear it. I shall wear it, myself, as soon as I can get a necklace for it!”

“Yes, it is beautiful,” I said. “And if those old-time jewelers could do that fine work, they did it in gold, too. When we get into our cave we sure shall make some wonderful finds!”

At five o’clock I reported “No fires,” and we went down to the cabin, put our finds in a little box – already half full of beads and arrow-points, and then had a good supper. After washing the dishes and getting in some stove wood for the evening and morning, we again went on top. Again I reported no smoke anywhere in sight.

“Look again; especially Green’s Peak way,” said the Supenisor.

“No smoke that way, nor in any other direction,” I told him, after another careful sweep of the forest with my glasses, and he told me that I could go.

It was just getting dusk when we entered the cabin, shut the door, lighted the lamp, and settled down for an hour of reading. Then, presently, there came a gentle knock upon the door, and we stared at one another, wild-eyed, for we had heard not the slightest sound of approaching footsteps; the porch boards had nor creaked. Hannah motioned me not to go to the door. But again, and a little louder, came the knocking. I got up, tiptoed over to the door with my rise, swung it suddenly open, and Hannah gave a little cry of fright: for there, plain in the light of our lamp, stood an Indian. A young Indian. No Apache. His hair was cut as short as mine. He wore leggins, shirt, blanket of a bluish-black material, and upon his feet a pair of plain, buckskin moccasins. He was not so tall as I, quite slender, and his face was good. And while we staredd at him, he smiled, bowed, and in good English said: “How do you do! May I come in?”

That did stagger me a blanket Indian speaking good English! I am afraid that I just stared at him, open-mouthed. And I might have kept staring had not Hannah answered for me: “Yes. Come in. Have a seat.”

He entered, seared himself upon the food chest, glanced around, and said: “You have a nice little cabin here. We did not expect there would be a cabin, nor white people away up on this great mountain.”

“We! There are more of you!” I asked.

“Yes. I am a Hopi. I am with four of our old men who have come all the long way across the desert to the top of this mountain to pray.”

“To pray! Here to pray!” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered shortly, and somehow we did not like to question him further about that.

“Will you not have some supper?” Hannah said.

“No, thank you. I ate with my old men. And, anyhow, I may not eat white men’s food – not until that for which my old men have come is finished.”

We did not know what to make of that. We could do nothing but stare at him.

Said Hannah, at last: “You speak English as well as we do.”

“I attended the Phoenix Indian School for four years, and was in the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Indian School for four more years. I came home from there about two months ago,” he answered.

And at that, Hannah and I had the same thought: This young Indian had had far greater advantages than we had ever dreamed of having. He had traveled in the cars; seen the great cities of the East and their millions of people; seen the ocean and big ships: and for eight years had attended good schools. Why, what we knew was as nothing, compared with his knowledge!

“You must have enjoyed attending school,” I said.

“I had no choice about it. The Governmentt forces us to attend its schools. Oh, how my people hate that!” he exclaimed, his eyes fairly flashing light. And then, more quietly: “And you two – why are you away up here?”

I explained that I was a fireguard, and that my sister was keeping me company for a time; that there was a little lookout house upon the summit where I passed the days, watching for fires and reporting those that I discovered. When I had finished, he nodded thoughtfully, and said: “We were surprised when we saw your cabin. I do not know what my old men will say when they learn that you also have a cabin up on the summit of the mountain: it may interfere with their plans.”

“Where are they And what did you do with your horses?” Hannah asked.

“When we saw your cabin, here, we turned back and camped a little way below the spring.

We brought no horses. We have come all the way on foot, just as our fathers did, hundreds and hundreds of years ago,” he replied.

“Oh, tell us! Do tell us why you and your old men are here! We want so much to know! “ Hannah begged, smiling at him.

He looked steadily at her, at me, too, for some time, and finally said: “I think that you are both of good heart. You will not believe as we do, but I feel sure you will not laugh at our beliefs, so I will tell you why we have come to this great mountain:

“For three summers, out there at our desert buttes, there has been but little rain; each summer my people’s harvest of corn and beans and squash has been less and less, and they have been obliged to use nearly all that remained of the harvests of better years. Then came this summer and no rain at all, and our priests said: ‘We have prayed and prayed Rain God for three summers to water our crops, to give us plenty of his rain, lest we starve. He may be angry at us – perhaps he has been far away and has nor heard our prayers; if he fails us this season we must many of us die from want of food. There remains but one thing for us to do: we must go to him at his high mountain home and there he cannot fail to hear our prayers and see the sacrifices that we make to him.

“Our people were anxious that the priests should do this. Away back, in the very long ago, when, every spring, the priests and great numbers of the men, women, and children went to the high mountain home of Rain God to pray and sacrifice to him, there had been never a summer of poor crops, for Rain God had accepted their offerings and their prayers and plentifully watered the plantings.”

Our strange visitor paused. He had spoken forcefully, earnestly, and now seemed to be deeply considering what more to tell us, if indeed we were in his thoughts. His eyes now had a far-away, absent look. Hannah and I waited breathlessly for him to continue. This talk of Rain God, prayers and sacrifices upon high mountains – it was all strange in our ears; it was as though we were being introduced to another world.

“All of our priests, all of our tribe, were anxious to make this journey. But there were the missionaries, talking ever against what they call our ‘heathen practices’! they would make such out-cry to our agent, they have so much influence in Washington, that he would not dare permit us all to go: those who went would have to start off in the night: they would have to sneak out across the desert just as though they were escaping thieves! So, after much talk, four priests were chosen to take the trail – the ancient trail of our long-ago fathers to Rain God’s home, and I was selected to accompany them as their interpreter, because I in time – when I have learned all that the old men can teach me – I, myself, shall be a priest of our faith, a priest of the Flute Clan.

“It was decided that, as our fathers in the long ago approached Rain God, so should these four priests go to him; they should wear no clothing and carry no article of white men’s make, and during the journey eat no white men’s food. Why? Because, as some of our priests said, it was likely that Rain God was punishing us for allowing our children to be taught the white men’s religion; was withholding his rains because of that. As though we could help that! The white men do as they wish with us and our children, and we are powerless. Anyhow, if the four priests went to Rain God without the least taint of anything of the whites within them or upon their persons – why, then how could the great god refuse their prayers for rain?

“So it was that, after days of preparation and much prayer, we started out one night upon the ancient trail to this mountain, the trail that had not been used by our people for years and years, almost a hundred years. Of those who had last traveled it but few had returned: our terrible enemies, the Apaches, had killed the most of the men, and captured nearly all of the women and children. And it is not without fear of the Apaches that we are here, weaponless. We could not carry white men’s rifles – offensive to Rain God – nor bows because we no longer have arrow-points of flint and have lost the art of making them. Tell me: do you ever see Apaches, here upon this mountain?”

“No, I haven’s seen any of them up here,” I told him. “They are not allowed to have guns, and are pretty well guarded by the soldiers, four companies of cavalry at Fort Apache, sixty miles from here.”

“But some of them do have guns, I have heard.”

“Yes. They manage to keep a few hidden from the soldiers, and now and then sneak away from their agency to hunt deer.”

“Just deer!” he asked, meaningly.

“Well, some white men have been found in these mountains, murdered in a horrible manner,” I answered.

“Of course! The Apaches are happy only when they are torturing people to death!” he exclaimed.

“The Apaches and the Navajos, what have n’t they done to us!” he went on. “We were not always just a few people living out there on the cliffs in the middle of the great desert, and depending upon the rains for the growing of our crops. No! We were a people of thousands and thousands, living far south in the Red Earth country; the Giant Cactus country; and our name then was as it is now, People-of-Peace. We lived in large, many-roomed, two- and three-stories high pueblos that we built in the wide valleys, and from the rivers we brought plenty of water in wide, deep ditches for our plantings. All up and down those valleys and far out upon the desert were our green growing crops of corn, beans, squash, sugar-cane, tobacco, and cotton. We were rich! Rich and happy, we People-of-Peace!

“But that was not to last. Years and years before the first white men came –”

“We know who they were: the Spanish conquistador, Coronado, and his little band of soldiers. They came into this county in 1540,” Hannah interrupted.

“Yes. And they were the bearers of more misfortune to us! But as I was going to say: Years and years before their time came down upon us new and terrible enemies, the Apaches, and their brothers, the Navajos. They murdered us in our fields; waylaid and wiped out our hunting parties; destroyed our crops; and at last forced us to abandon our broad, rich, irrigated valleys and move north into the mountains, where, in the cliffs of the deep canyons, we built our homes. There, too, the Apaches and the Navajos kept attacking us. Our numbers became less and less, until, at last, the few who survived moved far out into the desert and built homes, there where we are to-day. Even there our enemies occasionally came, but they could not force their way up the steep and narrow trails to our pueblos, and so were unable to make an end to us.

“So, there you have the story of my people,” our visitor concluded, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, the fire of bitter anger dying in his eyes.

“But you spoke of more wrongs done you by Coronado. What of him?” Hannah asked.

“Yes. He whom my people named ‘Hard-Clothing Chief.’ Because, of course, he wore shirt, leggins, and hat of iron, and his men, too. But I cannot tell you about him now; my old men are anxious for my return to them. But you shall know about Coronado, for we remain here four days. Good-night to you.”

He went out, carefully closing the door behind him, and Hannah and I felt as though we had been in another world. How much the young Indian knew! What a tale of terrible persecution of his people he had told us! More than ever we hated and feared the Apaches, so close to us down there on the south slope! And well we knew that if they discovered our visitor and his four old men, there would be murder right here upon our mountain. How the Apaches would delight in taking – at this late day – five more scalps of the Hopi people!

We had no more thought of reading, that night; what we had just learned was far more interesting than anything we could get from the printed page. Said Hannah, as I prepared to go outside to my bunk: “I know that I should feel that this we have heard about Rain God and his home here upon this mountain, is nothing but a crazy heathen tale, but I just can’t do it. I feel – oh, I can’t explain how I feel. I am all mixed up in my mind!”

I said nothing. But as I lay in my bunk waiting for sleep, my heart went out to the persecuted People-of-Peace, and to the four old men down at our spring, resting from their long tramp across the hot and dusty desert, and firm in the belief that their Rain God would answer the prayers they were about to make to him here upon this storm-swept peak.

I awoke a little later than usual, and after calling Hannah, took the trail to the spring for a bucket of water. As I neared it I heard a deep, pleasant voice fervently making what seemed to be an address. I rounded a clump of spruces and stopped short: in a row by a little fire sat our visitor of the evening and three of his old men The fourth one stood upon the lower side of the fire, with uplifted hands, talking impassionedly on and on, and I sensed at once that he was addressing the rising sun. I noiselessly drew back into the spruces, waited until he ceased speaking, and then went on down. The young Hopi called out a “good-morning” to me, and said something to the old men, and they one by one shook my hand, he who had addressed the sun saying, as the young interpreter told me: “We heard about you last night. It is good that you keep watch for the putters-out-of-fires, down below: the trees love life as well as we do.”

Said another: “We learn that you have a little house upon the top of this mountain. Tell us just where it is.”

“Right upon the top of a little rock butte at the south end of the summit,” I answered. And when that had been turned into their language they looked solemnly, meaningly at one another, and talked together for a moment or two, the youth listening intently to what they said. Meantime, I looked at them, and thought that I had never seen more kindly, intelligent faces, seamed and leathery with age though they were. All wore their gray hair cut square just above their shoulders and held in place with a narrow band of buckskin, and their clothing was just like that of the youth, of blue-black, homespun wool. Under a tree near the fire were a number of buckskin sacks of different size and well filled – probably with food I thought. Close in front of the fire were five small bowls of painted pottery, much like the pottery fragments strewn about my cave hole, and the lookout butte.

One of the old men soon questioned me again, and all of them listened eagerly, breathlessly, I thought, to my answers.

“You have been all over the top of this mountain?” he asked.

“Yes, “I answered.

“Up there near the north end of it and a little way down an the other slope, did you see a hole in the rock”

“Yes.”

“Did you go down into it?”

“Yes,” I answered again. And when the youth had interpreted my reply they suddenly seemed to wilt: they groaned as though in great pain; and the young interpreter looked at me reproachfully.

“But I went in only a little way; the hole is blocked with a piece of fallen roof rock,” I added. And at that the youth clapped his hands and shouted, “Good! Good!” to me, and when he told the old men what I had said, they straightened up and smiled at me, talking excitedly all four at once.

“It is that they are glad you did not go in there. That cave is Rain God’s kiva, or as you would call it, church. It is only for him, and for certain ones of our priests, these four. Had you gone into it, it would have been desecrated. I, myself, may not go into it, for I am but a student, as you may say. The priests teach me a few of the secrets, and watch me always to see how I conduct myself – oh, it will be a long time before I am made a full priest.”

“Can’t you tell me what there is in the cave – the kiva, as you call it?”

“I know no more than you what is hidden there, and if I did know, would not dare name the sacred things,” he answered.

I turned from him to fill my bucket at the spring and just then heard Hannah screaming out my name.